Justin Trudeau is leading the Liberals toward generational collapse. Here’s why he still hasn’t walked away
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/justin-trudeau-is-leading-the-liberals-toward-generational-collapse-heres-why-he-still-hasnt-walked/article_b27a31e2-75e4-11ef-b98d-aff462ffc876.html
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remember when he did boxing with brazeau, winning after everyone counting him out? remember when he brought the liberals to government from a distant 3rd place after everyone counting him out? you’d be silly to count Trudeau out.
I’m no fan of Trudeau, but I think it could be argued that he delayed the Liberals’ generational collapse by 10 years. After Dion and Ignatieff I thought they were basically going to disappear for a long time. I’m still not sure why Trudeau was popular or thought to have leadership potential (the hair?) At any rate there now seems to be little taste for more Trudeau and only modest talent on the Liberal benches, particularly in the leadership department, so they could be out in the wilderness for a while, which is fine and well earned, but the alternatives aren’t really great either (IMHO). (ouch… that was quite a run-on sentence…)
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« There is a constituency of progressives who could be rallied to vote for an acceptable alternative to Poilievre, but it is now clear that can’t and won’t be Trudeau, or Jagmeet Singh, who seems to have the political instincts of a pincushion. »
This is where I’m at and it’s frustrating. It’s been more than a year of terrible polling and he didn’t even have the courage to make the one change (other than resigning) that would actually matter, i.e. getting Freeland out of Finance. Everyone says that no one else would want to go down to certain defeat to PP but I’m not sure why a new leader couldn’t theoretically hold the Conservatives to a minority then rebuild the party from there? There are obvious differences with the Biden situation but I think both cases show that at some point party has to come before personality.
I’ve said it before and I will say it again. So long as these conservative rags are making the case that Trudeau *must* go, he shouldn’t go anywhere. They are not in the business of helping the Liberals in the next election and clearly think the conservatives have a better chance with someone else leading the Liberals.
Pundits seem to overlook that the CPC and LPC were roughly neck and neck for a long period of time, until the popularity of the CPC sharply diverged at the end of the summer of 2023.
[That’s when the Grits had their summer retreat to discuss housing; only to emerge and reveal that they had learned that the crisis was real and that something ought to be done about it.](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-trudeau-housing-cabinet-retreat/)
It was a disaster. A truly awful response from the LPC, and revelatory of how grossly out of touch they were with with the concerns of middle-aged and young working class voters. And there’s been no coming back from it; they pulled back the curtain and revealed the truth, and they lost the trust of voters.
In case anyone doesn’t remember, the Liberals already went through a generational collapse in the Harper era. If they collapse again post-Trudeau era you could think of it as nothing more than a return to the political norm.
The Liberals basically don’t exist provincially in Western Canada. In Central Canada they’re hanging on by a thread. In Ontario they haven’t even been recognized as a political party for going onto 7 years now. They pretty much only exist in Quebec, Atlantic Canada and Federally. But if they get decimated federally that’ll really just leave them Quebec and Atlantic Canada.
But with a PP government and his own suggested policies, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Separatist parties start gaining popularity in Quebec tonight back against Western Canada which would force out the QLPs even meagre holdings.
Really when you think about it, Centralism is in a tough spot right now. People want simple answers to complex problems and the only people peddling those are at the extremes.
The average “Generational collapse” of parties in Canada lasts 10-13 years. The cycle is usually about 10 years in government and 10 years out of government. Read history. It’s not rocket science. Everything gravitates towards the center in the end because the Canadian electorate doesn’t tolerate extremism.
I’m going to say this until some news media picks this up.
The LPC do not have the money to compete with the CPC. If they changed leaders now, the CPC would spend the next year blasting the new leader with negative ads that the LPC could not counter in any ways shape or form. Doug Ford did that with Bonnie Crombie. During the NHL playoffs it was wall to wall negative attack ads and the OLP, being broke, couldn’t introduce their leader.
So if the LPC switched right now,
1. The new leader would be attacked by the CPC with an epic amount of negative attack ads.
2. The new leader would be running the country right now, and any negative event would be tied to them.
3. The LPC would not be able to frame their new leader as shiny and new by the time the election rolled around.
If the LPC wants to do this, they need to
A) Keep the BQ and NDP happy until October.
B)Engineer a coronation like Kamala Harris got in the USA, no messy leadership battle.
C) Have Trudeau resign and the new leader take over with 3-4 months to go before the election.
D) Run a huge ad buy to promote this new leader to counter the the avalanche of ads the CPC will run.
They switch leaders now and the new leader would be DOA.
I feel like the LPC is done for a generation until Xavier Trudeau or Ella Grace Trudeau come of age. I foresee another PM Trudeau in 25-30 years.